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| Meryem Erdogan of Türkiye is looking for a 5,000m and 10,000m double at the European Athletics U23 Championships in Ostrava next month. |
Türkiye’s Meryem Erdogan will be bidding for a double triumph at the European Athletics U23 Championships in Ostrava, Czech Republic next month and is looking to add to the gold medal she won at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships in December.
Erdogan, 21, confirmed on the Turkish athletics federation website www.taf.org.tr that she intended to contest both the 5000m and 10000m.
“Meryem will do the 5,000m and 10,000m. The temperature doesn’t matter. We want a medal in both events,” said her coach –znur Dursun.
The only time the distance event double has been done before at the European Athletics U23 Championships was two years ago when Russia’s Natalya Popkova won both events.
Erdogan was fifth in the 2010 European Athletics Championships 10,000m in 31:44.86, the fastest time over 25 laps of the track by a European under 23 runner for 20 years.
Her track performances last summer ensured that she went to 2010 SPAR European Cross Country Championships in Albufeira, Portugal, as the favourite for the women’s under 23 race and she didn’t disappoint.
She hit the front less than a third of the way into the 6070m race on the Algarve coast and was never headed, leading by two seconds at the end of the first of three big laps and she was five seconds ahead of the field at the bell, eventually crossing the line in 20:08.
With her pedigree, Erdogan could quite conceivably challenge the Championships best performances in Ostrava.
The 5000m mark is currently 15:16.79, set by her compatriot Elvan Abeylegesse in 2003 while the best 10000m performance at the European Athletics U23 Championships was achieved by Serbia’s Olivera Jevtic, running for what was then Yugoslavia, in 1999.
She was troubled by an Achilles injury earlier in the year and Dursun said that she was still getting back to her best form. This was one of the reasons she has yet to race on the track yet.
However, he didn’t discount the possibility that Erdogan may be in the Turkish team contesting the European Team Championships First League on home soil in Izmir on June 18-19.